Disrespected Heels Look to Plant Flag at Carter-Finley

CHAPEL HILL – There are losses that athletes never forget, and then there are losses that really stick in their craw.

An opponent beating a team in their own stadium and then planting a flag at midfield qualifies as the latter. It’s downright disrespectful, they say, and cannot be tolerated.

Those are the kinds of words emanating from the Kenan Football Center this week as the North Carolina Tar Heels (8-3, 4-3 ACC) look to exorcise a few demons when they visit NC State (8-2, 5-2) on Saturday night. At hand:

*Ending a two-game skid to the Wolfack in which the Heels suffered gut-wrenching losses.

*Getting on a winning track after dropping three of their last four ACC games, with the lone win in double-overtime at home versus a Duke team playing a true freshman third-string quarterback.

*And eliminating the taste in their mouths of the Wolfpack planting an NC State flag at the 50-yard-line in Kenan Stadium last season.

“We still remember some of the things they did after the game,” UNC receiver J.J. Jones said this week. “I know I took it personally. I wasn’t a fan of what they did.”

It was another layer in an intensifying rivalry between the programs. UNC hasn’t embraced the idea that State is it’s rivalry, but that might just be for show. If anything, the flag deal last fall was just what the rivalry needed. Spice is always good for games like this, and Saturday’s will have it overflowing.

The main issue at hand, and added source of additional fuel, was that daring act by the Pack.

“I think it raises the bar tremendously. It’s very disrespectful,” UNC senior jack Kaimon Rucker said. “You put a flag in the middle of our place and what we call home, you know, that’s like it’s you taking a load in the middle of the house in the living room.

“You can’t do that in the middle of the house. It’s very disrespectful, but we’ll save the best for when combat starts.”

Load? This hate-fest has absolutely taken on a new level.

“It’s something we talk about all the time, taking us a little bit into our offseason,” senior linebacker Cedric Gray said, before noting something strength and conditioning coach Brian Hess did last spring and summer.

“Coach Hess, on big squat days, he would put the picture up on the screens around the weight room just as motivation. So, it’s definitely something that’s been on our minds for a long time.”

Following UNC Coach Mack Brown’s first win over the Wolfpack in 1993 in his first stint as Carolina’s coach, an assistant coach for each team got into a literal fight on the field. UNC’s Donnie Thompson and State’s Ted Cain went at it, with Thompson tackling Cain and slamming him to the ground.

Many other incidents have marked the rivalry, but the flag-in-the-soil last November has the Tar Heels all amped up and looking for some payback.

“One thing I’m very looking to is that they planted their flag on our field,” Gray said, “so I’m definitely looking forward to going over there and getting that win and sticking a flag on their field.”

If it happens, the bar will no doubt move up another notch.